You Were Doing What?

Having served in management posts for a decent portion of my working life, you might imagine I’ve heard more than a few excuses and heard more than a few anecdotes with regard to employees not working (at least at what pursuits they were receiving paychecks for) when they were allegedly on the clock.

For example, when once caught in a shortage for copy at one of my former publishing posts, and ordering all hands on deck, I was grateful to see one of my junior editors furiously banging away on his keyboard only to discover that he was crafting a freelance piece for a theater magazine. When confronted, he argued with a straight face that “it had to be in by 5 p.m. that day.”

Another vignette entailed a soon-to-be-former page layout designer who, on deadline day, simply disappeared. When he returned hours later, he calmly told a very angry management that “it was such a beautiful day he decided to take advantage of it and ride the Staten Island Ferry.”

I kid you not.

The next day the human resources director informed him that he was free to ride the ferry anytime he wanted.

One former technology editor used up two reams of paper and several printer cartridges printing out his book manuscript. Since the charges were billed directly to my unit, I simply handed him the invoice and informed him the company accepts credit cards.

I’m sure many of you can regale us at length with tales of shall we say, employees “distracted” from their core responsibilities.

Recently, one of the hundreds of job sites that now proliferate the Internet listed a number of both shocking and funny examples of what employees were doing in lieu of working.

To wit:

• A married, but apparently fidelity-challenged employee was caught trawling online dating sites. Somehow I feel this is among the more common discoveries and no small reason that websites like Ashley Madison are flourishing.
• Two workers were discovered staging their own Ultimate Fighting Championship bout in the storeroom – from my past experience it no doubt it was editorial vs. sales.
• A female employee was taking selfies in the bathroom – personally, if there’s a place where I would rather not see a selfie, the restroom would pretty much be at or near the top of that list with regard to venues.
• A snoozing underling actually tried to convince his higher-ups that he was in fact praying. No doubt he later did pray that he would be spared the unemployment line.
• And last but not least, another decided to take his family on an impromptu vacation, only he neglected to tell his superiors or put in for the time off. Once he returned, they encouraged him to extend his time away from the office – indefinitely.